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Kochi markets wait for Christmas
by Juhan Samuel
Kochi:
The countdown to Christmas has started. Traders in
gift items and cakes are waiting for the demand to pick
up. The local markets used to witness a heavy demand by
this time ahead of Christmas till last year by corporate
companies or local customers. But the response is dull.
For Keralaites, the Christmas and New Year celebrations
are like Deepawali, the biggest festival of Hindus. The
State has a considerable number of Christians. Most of
the people here are Christians and many of them are in
Gulf countries, who return to homeland during Christmas
holidays. For the big corporate companies, Christmas is
a time of showing their prosperity and a warm gesture
to their clients for better relations. During Christmas
many people wish to present cakes, chocolates and wines
to their relatives. The actual Christmas and new year
sales start well before the Christmas. Shops selling cakes,
confectioneries and gift articles used to be a busy place
with hands full of advance orders till last year. "The
recent crisis has really effected us a lot and we have
started feeling it. Till last year the customers during
Christmas used to come and do a lot of cash business.
But this year may be because of the financial slowdown,
they are not willing to do the same which has badly effected
our sales," said Sandhya Devraj, Supervisor for Lemars
Marketing (P) Ltd. The shops that registered record sales
and were sold out of cakes with huge corporate orders
earlier are complaining affected sales. Meanwhile, shopkeepers
this time round are keeping their fingers crossed. They
hope the business will pick up in the last hour. Corporates,
who are not much affected, are expected to move on with
their plans as usual, possibly in an economical way. Last
year, an estimated Rs.25 to 30 crores (250 to 300 million
rupees) of cake was sold in Kerala alone. But this year,
the sales are expected to hit by 20 to 30 per cent.
-Dec
11, 2008
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